'You betcha.'
I fixed us both a cup, sat back in my chair and stretched my feet out.
'Christ, Hap,' Charlie said. 'Put on some drawers, or cross your legs different. I don't want to look at your balls.'
'That's not why you came out?'
'Come on, man.'
I went and pulled on some faded jeans, but kept the robe on. I came back, recovered my coffee. Charlie was in the kitchen, pouring himself another cup. He went through the cabinets and found the bag of vanilla cookies I keep on hand for Leonard. He opened them, brought them into the living room, put the bag on the couch next to his hat and began eating the cookies.
'Want one?' he asked.
'Only if you're sure you don't mind.'
'Not at all.'
He held the bag out and I took one, dunked it in my coffee and ate it. Charlie said, 'Nobody eats these with as much pleasure as Leonard.'
'You're right.'
'I like to watch him eat them,' Charlie said. 'He gets that look that cartoon dog used to get when he was given a dog biscuit. You know, the one hugged himself and floated up and then floated down, he was so happy. What was that fuckin' dog on? Quickdraw McGraw?'
'I think so,' I said. 'How's Hanson, Charlie?'
'Same.'
'I think I'll go by and see him.'
'Go by, or don't. He won't know one way or another. You come in there butt-naked with a feather up your ass, or dressed in your Sunday Go to Meetin's, it's all the same to him.'
'What do the doctors say now?'
'Not much more than before, only they're less optimistic.'
'I didn't know they were ever optimistic.'
'You hear them now, you'll think before they were goddamn foolish with optimism.'
'Shit.'
'Yeah. Shit. Another week, they think he can go home. Might as well, he can hold down a bed there good as he can at the hospital. They'll send some tubes and pee-bags with him when he goes. Maybe, on good days, he can be used for a doorstop. Just roll him up to the door to hold it open.'
'Who'll take care of him?'
'He's going home to Rachel.'
'His ex-wife?'
'Yeah. Go figure. It was her idea. She and her daughter are gonna take care of him.'
'I thought Rachel had a boyfriend or something.'
Charlie made a patting motion at his shirt pocket, like he was looking for cigarettes, didn't find any, put his hand back in the vanilla cookie bag and pulled out a wafer. He waved it at me, said, 'Did. And the boyfriend wasn't keen on the idea, but she sent him packing. Believe that? Hanson and Rachel. They haven't lived together since I don't know when, and now she's gonna take him home and empty his pee and make sure he's got gruel in his food tubes, washrag his balls and wipe his ass. I don't get it.'
'Me neither. Must be the daughter's influence.'
'Maybe so. Tell you something else, Kmart is all but gone. Another week, won't be nothing there but an empty building and the parking lot.'
'So, that's why you came. You want to hold a little memorial service or something?'
'What I come to say is you and Leonard are in pretty good shape.' '
'We going to court?'
'Only to testify against folks. I don't think you'll get much backlash. It'd just make those fuckers look stupid. Ray Pierce, one you call Bear, he finally broke down and named Kevin Reiley as the other Klan man, which is of course who Cantuck said it was all the time. You know, I don't think that Cantuck is such a bad guy, you get to know him.'
'Good. What about Brown? Pierce name him?'
'No. There was enough business there for us to bring him in for questioning, but we didn't nail him. And I wanted to, believe me. He's a smug sonofabitch. White trash with money and a business degree. They're like roaches, guys like that. They're hard to get rid of, hard to kill . . . oh, and Pierce didn't name that officer—'
'Reynolds.'
'—yeah, him. He didn't name him either. He claims they did it on their own. One of them supposedly saw your car go by when you took the Grovetown turnoff toward LaBorde. He told the others, they got their sheets and came after you.'
'So, there's nothing to prove anybody else had anything to do with what happened?'
